The Rainbow Eternal

 

Today dawned wet and cool under gray skies. We were promised storms and thunder, and that's what we got: gray skies, rain in buckets, intermittent lightning, and random sunbreaks. In short, a perfect autumn storm to usher out the last official weekend of summer.

During this wild weather, we also saw a rainbow.

It started as a faint line in the sky, barely discernable against the background clouds. It was so dim, in fact, it was easiest to see if you focused your eyes just beyond it, or to the side: if you stared directly at it, it vanished like a mirage. We were at my grandfather's house with Grandpa, my aunt, and my uncle, so we all looked at the rainbow through the windows and admired it, then went on with our gathering. Several minutes later, I looked outside again.

The rainbow was still there, making a full arc across the sky.

In my experience, rainbows are highly transient phenomena. The precise combination of rainfall, sunlight, and viewing angle tend to be golden for very limited times - often just long enough to see the rainbow, run inside the house, and fumble one's camera out of hiding. The way the storms were blowing through today, I expected this rainbow, and its attendant rain and sunbreak, to vanish shortly.

Ten minutes later, the rainbow was still there.  Brighter than ever. And it now had a faint twin.

That's when my uncle and I went outside to snap photos of the thing.  We watched it for a while longer, marveling at its brightness and completeness - I've only rarely seen full-sky-arc rainbows - before going back inside. Some time later, we decided to leave.

The rainbow waited for us.

All on the drive home, we watched the rainbow.  Sometimes it grew brighter, sometimes dimmer.  Sometimes I was aimed directly at one of the arc ends, sometimes it arched neatly over the roadway.  It followed us through storm and sunshine.  It followed us, in fact, all the way home, when it finally vanished with the setting of the sun. All told, that rainbow lasted well over an hour, easily the longest-lasting rainbow I've ever witnessed in my entire life.

We weren't the only ones who noticed it. At a stoplight, I noticed a small flash in the car ahead of us; someone had just tried to take a photo of the rainbow through the car window. (I don't expect it'll come out, but at least they tried.) On the way home we saw a pair of men pulled over by an industrial yard, one standing in front of ugly slag piles while the other held a camera.; As we drove past, we noticed that the rainbow's brilliant end would appear to be just behind the posing man. I found it oddly reassuring to know that we're not the only people who still look up once in a while.

The rest of the day wasn't so spectacular.  My grandfather's slipping slowly but surely into that oblivion from which there is no return, evidence of which grew increasingly abundant as the day wore on.  My aunt and uncle both have friends going through terrible stretches.  Immediate family sometimes grew irritating in that way only immediate family can irritate.  Somehow, though, knowing there are still beautiful and mysterious things in the world helped me make it through.

Thank you for the eternal rainbow, Universe.  It was greatly appreciated.

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For the curious, Operation Mountain Relocation Phase 1 (i.e., updating my book review website) continues to progress, if at the pace of frozen molasses. I'm down to two more letters - M and N, representing 73 reviews - to transfer. After a bit more tweaking and some style refinement, I hope to publish the results by next weekend. Stay tuned...